Police in India- administered Kashmir say 10 people have been killed and another 10 wounded in separate incidents in the past 24 hours.

In fierce fighting between separatist guerrillas and India's paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) at Ikhwanpor Pattan, nearly 30 km north of Srinagar on Wednesday morning, three militants, a BSF soldier and a civilian were killed.

A senior official was injured. Two of the militants identified sos far were said to have been Pakistani nationals and members of the Al-Badar group.

An Indian soldier searches a civilian

In another incident on Wednesday, a special police task force shot dead a motor-rickshaw driver at Bemina, in the outskirts of Srinagar.

Police said the driver was an activist of the Lashkar-e Taiba. They said the incident took place when he threw a grenade at them after he was asked to stop.

Unknown assailants fired at the car of the son of a leader of the ruling National Conference, Sadiq Ali.

Suspected militants also threw a grenade at a security picket outside the deputy commissioner's office in Anantnag district, which missed its intended target and exploded on the road injuring 10 civilians.

Police shoot out

On Tuesday, a militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen group was killed in a clash with Indian troops at a village near Bandipora town in north Kashmir.

In another incident on Tuesday, a BSF soldier shot dead two fellow soldiers in a fit of anger inside a BSF camp in the border district of Kupwara.

A number of soldiers have been killed in such incidents in Jammu and Kashmir in the past three years.

India's Defence Ministry has sent a team of psychiatrists to investigate the phenomenon - particularly whether years of fighting separatism in the state might have made them mentally exhausted.